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Somewhere between Seattle and Spokane… the past drives through the future.

43 replies on “Something About The Juxtaposition”

  11. @4 not as hard as you think. Studies in Canada show you can run trains from stored wind power used to split H2O into fuel cells to power trains. Even works for high speed passenger and freight trains, since the engines are large enough for efficiency to kick in. That way the variability is reduced, as water is pumped up and then split when air flows.

    Really gnarly carbon impacts from that.

  12. Shit, I was at that EXACT rest-stop Monday (though possibily coming from the other direction). I missed Dan Savage by two days, bummer.

  15. @9- Only in test mode. The batch by I-90 is a different company & turbine than the ones higher up in the distance. Since they utilize a ‘prop trailing edge *into* the wind’ technology (ass-backwards from most), we think they were all assembled wrong and only caught the error during the final inspection….
    Enjoy Spokane, Dan. At least you’ll get some heat and sun.

  16. Catch in the news yesterday that Texas, with the largest installed wind generating base in the nation, can’t even come close to meeting peak demand needs in the hottest months of the year? Why? Because the fucking wind drops to nothing when temperatures are the highest.

    There’s no silver bullet. Your grandkids will still be buying gasoline to drive through that field of turbines.

  20. @16…um, I don’t think these things are being heralded as a replacement for current power generating methods, it’s just a way to diversify (and green up) the current infrastructure.

    Also, that Texas example probably has more to do with the fact that on the hottest days 10s of millions of homes have the AC on full blast. On the West Coast, our hot weather is often accompanied with strong winds…especially near
    terrain gaps and mountain passes (like the Columbia Gorge and the area shown in the picture).

  23. @20 is correct. It’s fricking hot there. One of the reasons Nevada is unsustainable – energy-wise – is they don’t have enough water and use too much electricity cooling buildings. Texas is like that in the summertime – I remember 110 F in the shade being not that unusual.

  24. @11, I am sorry to hear that you are unaware of the existence of electric motors.

    I’m also sorry that you are confused about the various wind-to-hydrogen research projects that are going on around the world, not just (or even primarily) in Canada. The whole point of doing it in the first place is to avoid those “gnarly” carbon impacts that you stupidly assign to them; carbon impacts come from older methods of producing hydrogen, such as stripping hydrogen atoms from natural gas, or doing electrolysis with electricity from fossil fuels. You’ve got it exactly backward. As usual.

    You also can’t write a simple descriptive sentence without fucking it up eleven ways to Sunday, can you? What did you mangle the nonsense in that paragraph from?

    The major work here is being done not in Canada but in the USA, at NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), as well as places like Germany and Ireland.

    The biggest drawback to wind in the current US energy picture, though, isn’t unreliability or lack of storage (though these are issues); it’s simple lack of transmission capacity. The energy is out in the boondocks, and the national grid isn’t designed to pick it up from there. The Texas Interconnection is simply not there for those wind fields. Our national grid is mostly a mix of 1960s technology and 1920s technology, and drastically needs updating.

    A good article on the subject is in the July National Geographic:http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/07/power-grid/achenbach-text . Even Will might learn something from looking at the pretty pictures.

  26. @15 – I was wondering about that, since they were dead still the last time I drove past as well. My new theory: they’re not turbines, they’re large-scale sculptural art.

  27. I keep waiting for the day one of those propeller wings breaks off and goes hurtling into a manufactured home community.

  28. @24 seriously, man, if you can’t go to a decent uni library and look up the scientific papers yourself, don’t post. It’s just embarrassing when you’re wrong.

    This is real science we’re talking. Next thing you know you’ll be telling us that you think we should all shell out $45k for an all-electric car to commute to work, instead of taking the bus or buying a $2.5k car that gets 60mpg.

    Go invest in the IPO of GM if you’re that out of it …

  30. US mod of the Tato Nano from India.

    Plus, bonus points, the seat sometimes lights up, which is really cool if you’re a Burner.

  31. @28, you’ve never read a scientific paper in your life, fuckhead. And you know nothing about any fuel cells. Or the “Tato Nano”, which you have spelled wrong (surprise, surprise). The Tata Nano is only available in India, and while it’s mileage is good, it’s not as good as Will says (surprise, surprise) — 55 MPG, not 66 — Will has once again forgotten to convert imperial gallons to US gallons. Surprise, surprise.

    Tata will soon be making a European version, which is a bit larger and meets their more stringent safety and emission standards and market requirements (i.e., it will have air bags and the rear hatch will open) and might be available in the US as well, but that one will cost $8,000, not $2,500, and (surprise, surprise) won’t get 60 MPG either.

    Now, $8,000 is pretty cheap, cheaper than a $10,000 Hyundai Accent, which is currently the cheapest car in America, but it’s (surprise, surprise) nothing like Will in Seattle says.

    Really, you’re a miraculous cesspool of errors, Will.

  34. I can just see Will as all about the Yugo and Fiesta, like they would be viable for 190 years and totally Freeway capable without any safety concerns, ’cause they are like, you know cheap and what his broker said was the future of the auto industry. Thus so Pre-Meme-ing the all those fat cats with his insider info.

  35. Will, seriously, it’s not just Fnarf, you are gawd-awfully painful to read because you’re such a goddamn featherhead.

    What, exactly does this mean: “…stored wind power used to split H2O into fuel cells”

    Did you mean ‘use wind power to split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, later used in a fuel cell to generate electricity’ ? Because your sentence made no-fuckin-sense.

    And “…the variability is reduced, as water is pumped up and then split when the air flows”

    WTF- are you trying to describe a gravity storage system, using penstocks and pumps to pump water uphill when there is wind power? Why not just say so?

    Bonus round: “…since the engines are large enough for efficiency to kick in.”

    Seriously, we need a WiS-Free Slog Day once in a while.

  36. @31 omg. Wow. I’ll go tell ScienceDirect it doesn’t exist.

    If you were an Alumni, I’d recommend you go to a library.

  38. @36, I’ve been in hundreds of libraries, including all of yours (UW has a few). Harvard has a hundred libraries, and I’ve been in every single one of them. You wouldn’t know how to open the fucking door of one. “They must be closed!” I can hear you saying, as all the other patrons stream in and out.

    Please don’t mention ScienceDirect again. You’re just embarrassing yourself further. See, that’s the key to your psychosis — even if your references are true, they just make you look even stupider, because you don’t know what they’re about.

    Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that ScienceDirect has a raft of articles that refute my points and confirm yours. The fact that you cannot point to any of them, or quote any of them, or summarize any of their points in a comprehensible way, doesn’t support you — it makes you look like a fucking moron.

    You don’t understand the first thing about wind power or hydrogen generation. You haven’t read anything about them on ScienceDirect. If you had, or even if you’d only read the fucking press releases, you’d be able to say something halfway intelligent about them. You can’t. So it doesn’t matter what websites you’ve heard of.

    But thank you for capitalizing “alumni”. It confirms a lot about you.

    Stop posting on Slog, Will. Just stop. You’re hurting yourself as much as you’re hurting any of us. Go get some psychological help.

  39. @37, you’re psycho, aren’t you? You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?

    You’ve posted on every single weekday in 2010, I’ll bet. I’ll put money on it.

    You typically don’t post on Saturday or Sunday, probably because you can’t figure out how to connect to your home internet. But there’s usually only a couple of posts on the weekend, and only a few comments.

    Although your “you just aren’t seeing posts then” remark suggests that you are under the impression that there are more than seven days in a week, including some when only you are conscious. Seriously: get a checkup. I fear you’ve suffered some kind of organic brain damage.

  42. I drove past those wind fields like 4 times last week and I think they’re so beautiful. There’s one point at which you’re driving West on I-90 and you see the turbines popping up out of the hills in front of a jagged mountain range backdrop. It’s the most striking image.

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